Smoke in Mirrors

If he had any sense he would cancel these sessions. Doing yoga with her always made him hard. He was torturing himself.

“. . . Relax and find the nexus of your energy lines . . .”

He lived for these yoga lessons. They were the bright spot of his week. No need to search himself for the nexus of his energy lines. They were all fused into a stiff erection.

“. . . And release . . .”

Nothing he would like better, he thought, than a good release. If only . . .

Cassie studied him with a troubled expression. “This was not one of our better sessions,” she said. “I got the feeling that you were unable to ground yourself today. Is something wrong?”

He told himself that he should keep his own counsel. She was his fitness instructor, not his best friend or his therapist. But he needed to talk to someone and she was a woman. Women sometimes saw things that eluded men.

“Do you think Thomas is sleeping with Leonora Hutton?” he asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

He had made a mistake. He knew that now. But it was too late to turn back.

“You saw them together the day before yesterday when you arrived for our Tuesday session. I just wondered if you got the impression that they might be involved in a relationship.”

“Deke, I only saw them for five minutes. They were on their way out the door, remember? How could I possibly tell what kind of relationship they have?” She gave him a scorching glare and uncoiled to her feet. “Besides, Thomas is your brother. You know him much better than I do. What do you think?”

“I don’t know. Thomas can be hard to read sometimes, even for me. But it seemed to me that there was something different about the way he was with her. He couldn’t stop looking at her. And he seemed sort of restless. Like he wanted to get up and move around. Pace the room, maybe. That’s not like him. He’s the most laid-back guy I know, even when he’s with a woman he happens to be, uh—”

“Even when he’s with a woman with whom he’s having an affair?” Cassie unzipped her gym bag and pulled out her sweatpants. “Is that what you were trying to say?”

He’d been about to say that Thomas was always calm and centered and at ease with himself even when he was with a woman he happened to be screwing. But he did not want to use the word screw around Cassie. It sounded a little crude. She might find it offensive. Besides, she already seemed a little irritated for some reason.

“Just thought I’d ask your opinion,” he muttered.

Cassie yanked her sweatpants on over her tights with uncharacteristically quick, violent motions. “From what you’ve told me, Thomas hasn’t been exactly celibate since his divorce. He dated that woman who worked up at Mirror House for a while a few months ago. Why would it be so strange if he was having another affair?”

“There’s just something different about this situation.” He struggled to put his hazy impressions into words. “Something different about Thomas.”

Cassie bent at the waist to tie the laces of her running shoes. “What?”

“Like I said, he seems very intense around Leonora. There’s a sort of energy between the two of them.”

“Sexual attraction produces a great deal of energy between two people. It charges the air around them.”

“But he wasn’t flirting with her. It was almost as if he was annoyed with her. Or maybe with himself. But that doesn’t feel right, either.”

Cassie straightened abruptly. “Sexual energy is like any other kind of energy. If it is ignored or resisted, it can form a kind of friction that easily translates into irritation or even outright anger. The only way to deal with it is to acknowledge it and channel it in a healthy, natural manner. I recommend concentrating on breath awareness. Very helpful.”

Deke winced. Cassie had that crisp, impatient tone in her voice that never failed to confuse and disturb him. It was as if she were lecturing a pupil who was being willfully slow.

“I never saw Thomas get this edgy around a woman,” he said.

“He’s probably on edge because they are not yet sleeping together.” Cassie reached for her sweatshirt and pulled it on over her head. “My guess is that once they start an affair, assuming they do, a lot of the tension will be removed from their relationship.”

“Think so?”

“Sex is an excellent means of reducing stress and elevating one’s general sense of well-being.” Her words were muffled by the enveloping folds of the shirt. “It can be very therapeutic.”

“Therapeutic? You really think so?”

“Yes.” Her head popped out of the neck hole. She avoided looking at him. “Under the appropriate circumstances, sex is a natural, wholesome way of revitalizing the lines of energy.”

“Appropriate circumstances?”

“I’m referring to a situation in which both parties are unattached, mutually attracted and in good health.”

Deke nodded. “Thomas is unattached and in good health and I think he’s attracted to Leonora.”

“What about you, Deke? You’re unattached and in good health, too. It’s been a year since you lost your wife. Don’t you occasionally think about getting involved with a woman?”

“Me?” Shit. Had she noticed his erection? “Involved?”

She exhaled slowly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s none of my business. I’m just your yoga instructor.”

Deke said nothing.

She slung her gym bag over her shoulder and went to the door. “I’ll see you on Friday. Meanwhile, work on that cobra pose. You’re forcing it. You need to relax into it.”

She opened the door and let herself out before he could formulate a response.

A familiar silence returned to the house. He had the feeling he hadn’t handled things well, but for the life of him he couldn’t see what he had done to make her mad. He’d just asked for her observations on Thomas and Leonora’s relationship, for crying out loud. Somehow she’d twisted the conversation into a discussion of his lack of an active sex life.

He didn’t need her to point out how barren his sex life was these days. He was all too well aware of that fact, especially when she was in the vicinity.

He went to the nearest window and pulled the curtains closed. He moved to the next window and repeated the action. He continued around the room until the shadows had returned.

When the familiar, comfortable gloom had pooled and deepened in the house he went to the desk and fired up the computer. He sat down and gazed into the glowing screen. He had planned to continue looking for anything he could find on the Eubanks murder, but for some reason he found himself thinking of the long-ago afternoon when he and Thomas had sat on the bed in Thomas’s bedroom and listened to their parents hurl accusations at each other out in the kitchen.